At Night the Dreams Come Out
by ncfan
Summary: Sasori a nightmare; Karura comforts him.


Well, I finally got around to writing a oneshot concerning a part of Karura and Sasori's friendship.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

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The campfire is dying down. A chill wind blows across the desert with a vengeance, chilling Karura down to her small, delicate bones.

Sasori is twitching in his sleep, as usual. His twists and turns in his blanket on the other side, like a writhing snake thrown on the fire.

He has nightmares quite often. Every time Karura leans over to try to joggle him awake, Chiyo tells her not to. She doesn't understand that. How can leaving someone asleep when they're obviously having a nightmare be anything but cruel?

But then again, some shinobi tend to do strange things when they are suddenly woken up, and Sasori, despite being only nine years old, kills people for a living.

Karura dispels those thoughts as she rises to her feet. Chiyo-sama isn't there right now.

The fire pops as she creeps around it, quietly so as not to wake any of the other shinobi sleeping in the camp, and crouches beside her partner.

Sasori's large, heavy-lidded eyes are screwed shut. A muscle in his jaw throbs and he whimpers softly. Karura flinches, and ventures a hand to poke Sasori's small, bony, moon-white (Karura will never quite understand how Sasori managed to stay so porcelain-pale when she browned like a nut; she supposes it might have something to do with his red hair) shoulder, left half-exposed thanks to his shirt being so thoroughly twisted around his body; in the past two years, Sasori has completely lost all his baby fat.

He does not wake up at first. Sasori continues to writhe slightly, and Karura grows even more frightened—no, apprehensive, she keeps telling herself, apprehensive—because he can't seem to wake up.

"Sasori," she whispers. He does not respond. Karura bites her lip. "Sasori," she calls a little louder.

"Sasori!" It's a half-shout now, accompanied by a short, sharp slap to the head.

"Ahh!" Sasori yells and wakes up, his arms twitching heavily and his brown eyes flicking wildly in the darkness.

The shinobi around them begin to wake up, arming and standing up in the night. "What is it?! Who's attacking?!" A man close to them shouts.

Karura is sure her face has gone ten different shades of red. "Sorry! No one's attacking, I was just—"

"Never mind then. Just keep it down, shoujo-chan."

"Yeah, sure." The other shinobi settle back into their pallets, grumbling, and Karura turns her attention to her partner, who is shooting a curious, slightly piercing gaze at her.

"What's up?" Sasori asks, his voice hazy and indistinct with sleep. A glaze of cold sweat glitters on his hair and dribbles down his shirt. His pulse is stuttering; she can see it from the rapid rise and fall of his chest. Sasori is recovering from fright, and trying to hide it.

"I could ask you the same thing," Karura whispers, smiling shakily, rubbing her bare arms and pulling a discarded jacket away from a nearby pack. It's not hers (from the size it probably belongs to one of the grown chunin who protested at her and Sasori's shouting), but she knows the owner won't mind terribly; the shinobi out on the dunes long-term often share such things if they can. "You were twitching in your sleep."

Sasori blushes slightly, looking away and pulling his blanket around his shoulders. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"_Again."_

The red-haired boy casts a suspicious glance at her. "If you've seen me like this before, why didn't you wake me up before?"

Karura smiles; she's got him. _Sasori's impatience will be his undoing._ "Chiyo-sama told me not to wake you."

Sasori blinks and bites his lip. He pulls his knees to his chest, staring off into the distance, the moon pointing the way for his eyes.

Karura jiggles his arm. The little boy turns his eyes slowly towards her, keeping them downcast and heavy-lidded.

"Sasori?" Karura whispers, jumping nervously as the fire pops. Their battle against the Leaf that day was nerve-wracking, and she keeps imagining enemy nin popping out of the hills. "You were having nightmares, weren't you?"

"No." Sasori is lying through his teeth, and Karura knows it.

"Stop it," she murmurs, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Sasori, we've been fighting together for nearly two years now. If you can't trust me, then maybe we shouldn't…" she trails off, gnawing on her lip.

"I have. Baa-chan keeps telling me to ignore them."

Karura burrows into the pallet beside him. "Is it from all the fighting…I'd understand if—"

"No."

The genin frowns. Sasori isn't like her and the others; he never shows any sign of strain from all the intense fighting they have been doing lately. He can kill without batting an eye, something that most jonin can not do; the only other person she's seen kill like that is Chiyo. _Might be something in the genes._

"Then…what are they about?" Karura's throat is going dry; she reaches for Sasori's canteen and takes a shallow sip out of it; he doesn't really seem to care. He smiles sadly, staring into the fire.

"You know my parents are dead, don't you Karura?"

Karura passes the canteen back to him; Sasori drinks deeply of it, wiping at his bloodshot, sleep-filled eyes wearily.

"When I was six, I broke into baa-chan's bedroom and read the report files. I shouldn't have done it; I've had nightmares ever since." He looks at her. "Karura, have you ever felt like your life was over before it ever began? Have you ever dated everything that's happened in your life as being before or after a certain event? I can handle it during the day, but at night the memories come out and take my mind for a beating." Sasori looks up at her, with big, hopeless eyes, huge in his small, white face. "Have you ever felt like that?"

Karura sighs heavily. "Yes." She settles in, and begins to tell him how her parents died.


End file.
